A Stray
by Charami
Summary: Working endless dead end jobs to support herself, her sister's schooling and ailing mother, Amu has a lot on her hands. The least that she needs added to this mess is an amnesiac man without a name and a spotty past to take care of as well. AU


It wasn't as if she had a sixth sense. That when things were terribly wrong, something was missing, askew, misplaced, she just _knew_. Entirely opposite the truth. She didn't notice it unless it was in front of her nose. Like if the door was obviously ajar, the lock in pieces at her feet. It would the big blaring sign that she was most likely robbed, her home was broken into and ransacked for valuables. Which was leaping to conclusions, but it was a practical panicked idea that most people would think of if ever faced with their door hanging wide open when knowing they locked it before leaving.

Amu was the seeing, then freezing, then panicking, then hyperventilating sort of person. She wasn't the attuned to everything around herself kind of gal, at all. If there were small signs, awry papers, a moved vase, littered jewelry pieces. She wouldn't notice. Amu would assume no one had been in the house, she would have never thought twice on scattered articles in her home. Only big things, obvious red light dangerous things did her safe little bubble evaporate instantly.

So, it probably wasn't surprising the night appeared normal to her. It might have been the exhaustion that made her eyes dance swiftly over the dark streaks littering the parking lot, immediately believing they were left from screeching rubber tires. There were a lot of those odd marks. It was out of the ordinary, something she shouldn't have overlooked. But she forgot all about the stains that she had presumed black due to the faulty street lighting that still needed replaced. It was late, her feet were throbbing, she was on the verge of collapsing to the ground just to rest. Her eyelids were weighed down with the images of a blanket, a pillow and a warm comfy bed, so close, just at the top of the stairs and fifteen steps to her apartment inside the complex.

That's all it took.

Then she opened her own door, as any other night, any other day. Amu shut it with her back with a sigh, brushing a hand over her forehead to shove hair aside. She threw the keys to her left atop a rickety table, the one with the still busted leg. It wobbled slightly, leaning to the side a bit from the small weight added from the keys. Amu continued on her way, struggling with her shoes in her exhausted state. She didn't catch something within the air, nor was there an invisible and strange new shift she could feel. It was normal, everything was in place to her. She was calm, tired, and wanting nothing but to close her eyes and snuggle beneath the covers and forget about all the work she had to do tomorrow.

"Out of sight, out of mind." She mumbled while rubbing at her cheeks with a groan, stumbling her way to her room. At that moment, walking almost unconsciously, having walked down this hall an uncountable amount of times, she noticed. It was a slow, trickling sensation when it hit. She passed by the bathroom already before stopping, swinging around her bedroom doorway, halfway inside with one foot. Then, she turned her head very slight, expression faintly confused. A delayed reaction on her part. Amu began to retrace her steps, knowing and almost assuming that it had been her weary mind filling gaps in her bleary vision. She stepped slowly, sloppily too, not at all apprehensive or frightened of the blurred image clutching stubbornly at the back of her head.

Maybe another time, an entirely different day, she would've been cautious. Slightly scared. But she wasn't, walking backwards on her heels, wanting to see for herself what the shadowed huddle of a shape had been in her bathroom. She arrived in a small collection of seconds, assuring herself that it was the outline of her shower, or toilet.

Amu pushed aside the door further with a tip of her finger, a piercing screech slicing at her eardrums in retaliation. She flinched for a fraction of a second, before flipping on the lights and squinting in the hazy sheen of illumination.

She had walked in the nighttime here from the bus stop, and also navigated her home without aide from above to brighten the way. It stung for a moment, but it only lasted that, a single breath of a moment.

The large shadow hadn't been her toilet.

The large shadow also hadn't been her shower.

Overhead the shape was a window she had forgotten to close and latch that morning.

"Oh god…" She whispered, covering her mouth.

There below the window, collapsed on the floor, was a man in a pool of blood that was steadily widening by the second.

* * *

 **A/N: Ah, this is weird. I haven't been on this site in ages! Omigosh, this thing is quite old. But it's a fun idea that I've always wanted to continue with, just wanted to see if anyone would like it so here we are~ Don't have it planned out too far, so we'll see how this goes, haha.**


End file.
